Morning all and welcome to Friday. It has been a week of allergies and annoyances s I am thrilled to finally reach the end of the work week. It was one of those weeks where everything I wrote I ended up erasing and rewriting just to repeat later. Not a productive one for me. But deep breath in and then exhale. Let’s start the last prompt of the week and see what happens. Timers set and off we go.
I kind of like this. Admittedly I do see my own annoyance in it, but that’s okay. Sometimes things just need to be released onto the page.
Friday, August 15th: I have a plan.
“I have a plan,” Danny said. I looked at him, unease growing in my belly. I had known Danny since the first grade. Anytime he said he had a plan I worried.
“You have a plan?” I repeated. He nodded and motioned me forward. I sighed but followed as he navigated to a thin trail leading into the woods behind the house. I knew this was a bad idea. All of Danny’s plans were bad ideas. This far in life Danny’s plans led to several visits to varying principles offices with one very near expulsion in high school, the end of more relationships than I cared to count, innumerable scrapes and bruises and five broken bones.
I knew I shouldn’t be following him into the woods to help with his plan but I did. Because we were friends and because if experience taught me anything it was that we both had a better chance of surviving Danny’s plans if there were two of us.
“What is the plan?” I asked. Danny touched a finger to his lips and I dropped my voice to a stage whisper. “Seriously, what is the plan?”
Danny turned away and kept moving. My guts turned over uncomfortably. He wouldn’t tell me the plan. It was worse than usual though. I may have learned it took two of us to survive but Danny learned that there were some plans I would balk at. He compensated by not telling me the details until it was too late to back out.
My phone buzzed and I reached into my back pocket. Jenna’s face came onto the screen. I heard Danny sigh. “I gotta take this,” I told him. “I’ll catch up.”
I heard the sound he made and didn’t need to look at the face to see his expression. He didn’t like Jenna. He especially didn’t like that she could sometimes talk me out of participating in some of Danny’s wilder plans.
I turned away and walked back out the way we came. I glanced back, but Danny continued on. I walked to the car, feeling relief as I unlocked the door and got in. I looked at the phone but didn’t answer the call. Danny may not like Jenna because she could talk me out of Danny’s plans and Jenna disliked Danny because he could still talk me into the plans.
At this point I wasn’t too thrilled with either of them. Danny had plans for me. Jenna also had plans for me. Neither really cared what plans I made for me. They were incidental. The call ended and I set the phone down on the passenger’s seat. I had no illusions it was the end. Jenna knew I was out with Danny tonight. It was the reason she was calling. She generally timed her calls on the nights I was with Danny to interrupt at the start and talk me out of things. I looked to the woods.
Danny disappeared into them. The phone buzzed and Jenna’s picture lit up the screen. Danny drove his own car to get here and Jenna was technically out with friends tonight. I was supposed to be finishing the final draft of my thesis.
“Screw it,” I said. I fastened my seatbelt, put the key into the ignition and started the engine. Jenna could have fun with her friends. Danny could do whatever it was that he had planned and suffer whatever consequences they were and I was going to go home and go through my thesis one last time to make the final corrections needed. For once, I was going to go with my plans.
Ten til Midnight 